No One Minds
by Colubrina
Summary: Hermione and Draco are Head Boy and Head Girl in a Voldemort-free AU world of silly fluffs. Will she let him take her to the Halloween Masque? Will Pansy's high heels trip her up before she asks her own crush out? And would someone tell Theo that's not appropriate in public? Winner Best Head Boy/Head Girl fic in the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" Dramione fanfic awards, 2016.
1. Chapter 1 - The Beginning

**_A/N - Welcome to AU there-was-no-Voldemort Head Boy/Head Girl fluffs. This is not serious. This is not dark. This is not even wholly logical and it certainly doesn't try to keep the characters in, well, character. This is silly fun and nothing more. There are five chapters and the whole thing is written._**

 ** _Many thanks to misslexilouwho who beta read this for me and to all the lovely alpha readers on tumblr who offered suggestions and encouragement during its creation, most especially moonnott and stefartemis._**

 ** _Now… on with the show._**

 **. . . . . . . . . .**

Draco Malfoy irritated her. His smug little grins irritated her and his privilege irritated her and his swagger irritated her. The thing that irritated her the most, however, was that in some fit of idiocy she assumed could only be laid at the feet of senility, Dumbledore had decided it would be a swell idea for Draco Malfoy to be Head Boy.

Yes, yes, he had great marks and was popular enough and active in extracurricular activities, assuming Quidditch counted which, unfortunately, it did, and she supposed it was a perfectly logical choice.

The only problem was that she was Head Girl.

This was not going to go well was all she could think as she sat in the private compartment on the train and waited for the worthless, arrogant, arse to show up.

He was late.

Of course he was.

. . . . . . . . .

Hermione Granger made Draco Malfoy want to scream. From the day he'd first sat in a class with her and she'd waved her hand in the air as if she were going to actually die if she weren't called on, she'd made him mental. She should have been just another forgettable swot, born to Muggle nobodies, but she wasn't. She had great marks, she was beyond clever, and she looked good whenever she bothered to try.

Not that she did nearly often enough.

And now she was Head Girl and he'd have to spend a whole year _living_ with her and _planning_ things with her and she was sure to yap at him that he did it all wrong and had he read _Hogwarts: A History_ because there had been a Halloween Masque in 1201 that had gone hideously wrong and did he think it was really a good idea to try that particular theme again?

Dumbledore had lost his mind. The man had flat out lost his mind.

His seventh year was supposed to be fun and now instead of a good time he'd be stuck with Granger who, of course, wouldn't even look at him twice.

She never did.

Stupid swot.

. . . . . . . . . .

"You're late."

Draco glowered at the girl. She'd already spread out what looked like three months of proposed schedules for prefect patrols and had her hair back in some horrible tight braid that looked fat and stupid because bushy hair like hers wasn't meant to be tortured that way.

"Had to say goodbye to Pans," he said, adjusting his collar as if he were hiding evidence of Pansy's affection.

"If I could say goodbye to Ron and still get her on time," she began, a lecture already formed in her eyes and ready to pour out of her mouth. He interrupted her.

"I thought you were seeing Feelsy McClaggan," he said. "That's who you took to Sluggy's party last Christmas."

"Feelsy?" she asked. Draco couldn't tell if she were amused or aghast at the tosser's nickname. " _Sluggy_?"

He just quirked an eyebrow up at her and flung himself down onto the bench. He stretched his legs as wide as he could and spread his arms over the back of the cushions and waited to see if she'd say anything. When she didn't he was oddly disappointed and pulled a toy Snitch out and began tossing it back and forth. "Sluggy," he confirmed. "Professor Slughorn to you proper, middle class types."

"You weren't invited to Professor Slughorn's party," Hermione said.

Draco shrugged and didn't let on how much that exclusion had rankled. He was wealthy, and from an important family, and just one little not-even-a-conviction charge of fraud and vote rigging on the part of his father and suddenly Slughorn didn't want him around. "Snuck in," he said. "You looked good."

She had too, in some pink dress with a pleated skirt. She didn't look good _now,_ unfortunately, with her hair back in that lump and a uniform jumper that had to be three sizes too big. He let his eyes travel up and down her body and made a face she chose to ignore. "Thank you," she said, her voice just as proper as he'd accused her of being. "But, no, Cormac and I only had the one date."

"Tried to feel you up, didn't he?" Draco asked knowingly. He tipped his head at the paperwork she'd set out and said, "Put that away, I'm sure it's fine."

She seemed offended he didn't want to double check her plans but began gathering evidence of all her work up. When she had it almost tucked away, seething in some kind of put-out-girl silence, he tossed the Snitch at her. She ignored it and the thing fluttered in the air in front of her, darting toward her face and then away until she narrowed her eyes and held out one hand. Draco watched in astonishment as the Snitch settled down onto her palm sans protest and she shoved it away in her bag too.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"It's just a practice Snitch," she said, as if that made what had just happened obvious. When it was clear he was still confused she said, as if explaining something to an idiot, "All practice Snitches have to be able to be turned off with the same charm. There was a case brought in, uh,1987 by the mothers of Surrey against the manufacturer, and one of them testified that - "

"If you plan to recite the entire hearing," Draco said in as affected a drawl as he could muster, "we might get to Hogwarts before you're done."

" _Anyway_ ," Hermione said, glaring at him, "Ron and Harry play with these things all the time I learned the charm because I don't like having balls in my face."

Draco blinked at her a few times and then sniggered. She turned bright red as she realized the full meaning of the double entendre.

"That wasn't what I - ," she began.

"Good to know," he said. "I'll keep that in mind."

She pulled out a book and pointedly ignored him until he said, "Still, wandless and voiceless. Impressive."

"It was just a practice Snitch," Hermione said, but she looked pleased at the compliment nonetheless.

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione looked around the Head dorm. Cast off chairs from what appeared to be every house filled the small, dingy common room. "I thought the Heads had a _good_ dorm _,"_ she said. "This is - "

"I'm writing home," Draco said. "I'm telling my father. This is a dump." He stalked across the room to a small counter with a tea pot and two chipped mugs. "What is this? Why is there rubbish left out?"

Hermione ignored him to open a door into a small bedroom. A single bed with a metal frame sat against one wall and a desk against the other. There was just enough room between them to open the drawers most of the way; the only window was dirty and looked out at a stone wall only three feet away. "There's no closet?" she asked in horror before she found one.

Draco followed her into the room and looked at the closet she'd found. "There's no closet," he said, eyeing it. "Fortunately, you don't care about fashion so it shouldn't matter."

She hit him on the arm without thinking about it. It was the same kind of annoyed smack she gave Harry whenever he admitted he hadn't done his homework because he'd been up late listening to a Quidditch game on the radio and could he borrow her notes just the one last time. Draco glared at her but she didn't notice because she'd crossed her arms and was staring unhappily into the small and dusty space where three dilapidated wire hangers hung askew. "This is… maybe the other room is better."

Draco almost sprinted to the other room lest it turn out to be this mythical better but it wasn't. Hermione fell through the door right after him, almost stumbling into him, and they looked around. It was an exact mirror of her room except someone had left a copy of Advanced Arithmancy on the desk. "We better not have to share a shower," Draco muttered.

They did.

"This is not acceptable," Hermione said as she used her wand to fill the teapot with water, after using three different cleaning charms on it and still not being sure the thing wouldn't be better off binned. "This has to be a joke."

Draco found three tea bags in the back of a cupboard and handed them to her. "You can have this," he said. "I've got fire whiskey in my trunk."

"Oh no," she said. "That is against the rules, Draco Malfoy. You cannot have -"

"Take points," he suggested. "But I just found out that not only do I have to share a dorm with the swottiest swot who ever swotted, that dorm is a disaster I wouldn't even wish on a Muggle-born like you, said swot." He waved a hand around the room. "Look around and tell me you don't want a drink."

Hermione hesitated but the teabags were so old she wasn't even sure they counted as tea any longer. "Just one," she said at last.

Draco grinned at her. "Turn those mugs to something fit for good whiskey," he said. "I'll be right back."

"This is very irresponsible," Hermione yelled after him.

He stuck his head back out of his room. "I promise, Head Girl, that I will be so responsible tomorrow all your most tedious dreams will come true. I will walk firsties to class. I will coordinate prefects. I will even listen to you explain why whatever pet project you've got outlined in your bag is a good idea even though it's not, but tonight, my dear Granger, we drink."

He muttered as he ducked back away, "It's not like I can invite anyone else back here. Pansy would refuse to put one designer shoe into this place and Blaise would laugh himself sick."

And that, Hermione thought, was an unexpected silver lining.

She'd take it.

Draco came out of his room with a half-empty bottle of what looked like very expensive fire whiskey. Hermione was, in all fairness, not well versed in high end wizarding alcohol, but if packaging was a good indicator of cost, the bottle in Draco's hand was probably better than anything she'd ever had. In Gryffindor they'd tended to use what a long-tended still produced though, once, the Weasley twins had arrived with a truck filled with Muggle alcohol. No one had asked how they'd gotten it and a lively night was had comparing tequila to vodka.

Hermione was excellent at hangover charms. Most Gryffindors were. Neville Longbottom was the latest in a long line of Housemates who could turn anything into liquor and practice, after all, made perfect. Hermione had had a lot of practice. She'd once told Ron it was a pity there wasn't a N.E.W.T. in the subject. She'd have gotten an Outstanding without trying.

She let Draco pour her one glass, stopping him before he filled it. "Not a heavy drinker?" he asked with a grin.

She smiled at him and took a sip. Damn, she thought. The good stuff was smooth. She could get used to this.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco watched her taste the whiskey and smirked at the way her eyes widened. He'd made off with a bottle of his father's very best stuff but fire whiskey was still whiskey and if you were used to fruity girly drinks or butterbeer it could still feel a bit like, well, fire. Given how she'd kept him from totally filling the glass he bet she had a low tolerance. He wondered if he could get her drunk enough to steal a kiss.

Three glasses later his bottle was empty, the room was spinning, and Hermione Granger was still talking about how she didn't think some concept they'd studied in Runes was really properly explained by the textbooks. She'd done some research the previous year and come to some conclusion that Draco was sure made total sense and was likely to be annoyingly right and probably even brilliant, but he'd stopped listening to the words and was just watching her mouth move.

How was she not drunk? _He_ was drunk. He was _very_ drunk. This wasn't fair. She'd matched him glass for glass and she was still _sober._ How was that even possible? In Slytherin you sipped one good drink and she had not done that and so he had had to keep up with her and she was not playing by the rules. There were _rules_ and the rules were she got drunk and giggly and he got to kiss her like he'd wanted to do for a while and instead _he'd_ gotten drunk and she was _lecturing_ him on _schoolwork_.

Life really wasn't fair.

His head lolled to the side as he watched her talk. "You taking Runes again?" he asked when he stopped for breath.

It might have come out a bit more like, "Youse takin' Runes gen?" but she seemed to understand him. "Me too," he said. "Theo too. You eed to study wit us."

"I don't think so," she said. "I doubt your friend would want to study with the Muggle-born."

"Theo's not like that," he said, taking care to enunciate perhaps a little too carefully this time. "Me neither."

She snorted and he could feel his mouth turn down into a petulant frown as she said, "Let me guess. Some of your best friends are Muggles? You went out to Muggle London once and it was fine?"

Draco squinted at her. "Ne'er met Muggle," he said. "Jus' you. And stuff. Don' care, though. Think yer pretty." He nodded. This was very important and he needed to say this just right. "You have pretty hair." He frowned at his empty glass. "You don' like me, though. You won' study with me because you don' like me."

Hermione stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"'Morrow's gonna hurt," Draco said plaintively. "And you won' study wit me and you won' even kiss me." He glared at the bottle. "Wasted you for nothin'."

She patted him on the head as she walked by. "I'll take care of your hangover in the morning. Who knew you were such a cheap drunk, Malfoy? It's kind of cute in a pathetic sort of way"

"That whiskey isn' cheap!" he yelled after her as she shut her door. He slouched back in his chair. "Isn' cheap at all," he complained. "And no kisses."

"Drink water." She stuck her head out the door of her bedroom and he turned to quickly to see her and everything wobbled. "Drink plenty of water, Malfoy. It will help." She muttered something like, "I'm an idiot," but added, "I'll study Runes with you if you really want."

"Kisses?" he asked hopefully.

She slammed the door of her room and he took that to mean, "No."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione had charmed away Draco Malfoy's hangover before he spoke. "I didn't…I didn't do anything _embarrassing_ last night, did I?" he asked.

She eyed him. He'd been drunk but he hadn't been drunk enough to not remember things and he wasn't sure she'd buy his feigned ignorance. "You mumbled a lot," she said. "You invited me to join you and Theodore Nott in a Runes study group but I assumed you didn't _mean_ it because of the whole 'Muggle' thing. Don't worry, I won't hold you to that."

He almost fell over himself to tell her that he really had meant it and they'd both be thrilled to have her join them.

"I'm not quite your type," she said.

Draco Malfoy admitted that was true but said, "Last year our 'type' was that spotty Ravenclaw. I'd rather upgrade to you."

"The spotty Ravenclaw?" It took Hermione a moment to realize who he meant. "Not _Marietta Edgecomb?_ " she asked. "Isn't she the one who turned in Ron and Harry for their, uh, incidents?" She'd despised the girl on principle since she'd ratted the boys out for parties they'd organized that, while technically against the rules, had been nothing Marietta needed to concern herself with. If she hadn't wanted to go, she could have just stayed home.

"You mean the 'incidents' no Slytherins were invited to?" Draco asked her.

"Like we could have trusted you to keep your mouths shut," she said. "You and Harry have that personal _thing,_ so you would have gone running to Dumbledore just to - "

"You trusted _Edgecomb_ ," Draco said. He was still irritated there had been a whole underground party network the previous year and none of his friends had been included. Gryffindors: snots, all of them. And hell would freeze before he went running to Dumbledore with anything.

Though, now that he thought about it, Granger's alcohol tolerance began to make a little sense, though her self-righteous thing about rules seemed more hypocritical than ever.

"Trusting her was a mistake," Hermione admitted somewhat grouchily. "Cow. I can't believe you studied with her. She's dumber than a box of rocks."

Draco smirked at her assessment before he asked, as casually as he could, "That was it, though? I asked you to study but nothing else especially embarrassing?"

He'd hoped Hermione Granger, good girl and chivalrous Gryffindor, would pretend his pathetic whinging about kissing her hadn't happened. Like so many other things he'd hoped about the bushy-haired swot over the years, however, his dreams were doomed. She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, reminded him he'd promised to do the first year escorting tasks that day so no one got lost, and suggested he should take on the job of organizing the Halloween Masque all by himself. He was about to protest that that was not _fair,_ that it was a _huge_ job and they were supposed to do it _together,_ and, besides, after all the 'incidents' of the year before surely she had tons of experience at planning big student parties that would be far more useful than his knowledge of good whiskey. He couldn't get his mouth open, however, before she said, "I might manage to not spread around how you got pathetically drunk and begged me to kiss you if you took that over."

She smiled at him as his jaw dropped at the sheer _gall_ but he realized he was stuck.

"Blackmailer," he accused. "You can't do that!"

She waved a cheerful goodbye as she let the door to their dorm close behind her.

 **. . . . . . . . . .**

"So what's he like to live with?"

Hermione tried to ignore Harry but he kept putting his hand over her Potions essay until she finally groaned and said, "If I answer your questions will you just stop so I can finish this?"

Ron scooted his chair closer to hers and she sighed as she realized why they'd both been so avid to do their homework for once. Neither needed N.E.W.T.s; Ron already planned to join his brothers at their joke shop and Harry had Quidditch ambitions and, as much as the idea of encouraging someone to skive off his education so he could become a professional athlete seemed idiotic, she had to admit in Harry's case it wasn't the worst plan in the world. Even Victor Krum, widely considered best Seeker in the world and her sometime pen-pal, admitted Harry was gifted.

It was annoying because she hated Quidditch but somehow ended up friends with all these Quidditch players. Harry. Ron. Ginny. Victor. She kept having to go to their games and pretend that she cared and she really, really didn't. Even Malfoy played Quidditch and thus his unending rivalry with Harry.

"He's fine," she said. "So far he takes really long showers, which is irritating, and leaves bottles of hair potions all over the bath we have to share, but he's basically tidy and quiet."

"He shirks on his Head responsibilities, though, right?" Ron asked, keen for complaints about the boy he considered, with more than a little justification, to be a prattish wanker.

Hermione smiled rather smugly and said, "He volunteered to take over planning the whole Halloween Masque which I was rather dreading so, no, he's really fine." She opened her mouth to tell them he was a lightweight but closed it again; that didn't seem to be in the spirit of what she liked to think of as her _agreement_ with Malfoy that he handle the Masque in exchange for her silence.

Harry saw the aborted movement, however. "What?" he asked.

"It's nothing," Hermione hedged.

"Not nothing," Ron said. "You have dirt. Spill it."

"I agreed to study with him and that quiet friend of his, the one who looks a bit like a rabbit." Hermione felt guilty for the way she noticed the poor boy's buck teeth but some things you couldn't help but see if you were the daughter of two dentists. Of course, she'd had a similar problem she'd managed to get fixed with magic and she wasn't sure why he just didn't do the same. Purebloods could be weird about stuff like that, she'd noticed.

"Nott?" Harry asked as Ron help up two fingers to mimic Theodore Nott's teeth.

"That's the one," she said, pleased she'd distracted them. "Be nice."

They both looked at her.

"Fine," she said. "But go away and let me finish my essay."

"That," Harry said, "we can do."

. . . . . . . . . . .

"So, what's the little swot like?"

Draco narrowed his eyes at Pansy and said, "It's been one night, Pans. I'm not sure that gives me enough time to have any real insight into her character." He lifted his Arithmancy book and waggled it at her. "I am a little busy here."

Pansy Parkinson gave no indication she planned to leave anytime soon. Instead, she stretched her legs out and admired her shoes - shoes that most certainly did _not_ meet dress code regulations and which were likely going to result in some horrible accident on one of the moving staircases - before tilting her head and saying with a theatrical sigh, "I cannot believe you have to live with her."

"Believe it," Draco said. "Head Boy is a position that looks very, very good on Ministry internship and clerk applications, Pansy, so don't think I have any intention of resigning just because of who the Head Girl is." He picked up a quill and looked pointedly at the homework he already had.

Pansy did not take the hint. "Our last year and the Halloween Masque will be ruined. _Ruined_."

"How's that?" He didn't look up but Pansy never really required encouragement. Any audience would do.

"Hermione Granger planning a formal dance?" She sniffed. "Potter and Weasley's little illicit drinking bashes are one thing, just throw out a little spiked punch and let the magic happen. But the _Masque_ is a big deal, and there hasn't been a Mudblood who planned it - "

"Watch your language," Draco said. He looked up and she was gaping at him. "Really, Pans, are you a pureblood or a bloody guttersnipe? No one but Greg talks that way and I try not to admit I know him in public." She huffed and he added, "Besides, Granger agreed to let me handle the whole Masque so you can put your budding socialite fears at ease. It'll be fine."

Pansy regarded him suspiciously. "How did you manage _that_?" she demanded. "And _why_? You _hate_ planning things."

Draco shrugged. "She did all the prefect schedules." Pansy still looked suspicious. "Plus, I thought you might like the chance to put your own stamp on the event. You did say last year the only good thing about being Head Girl would be getting to plan the Masque and the Yule Ball and the Easter Cotillion and I don't know if I can get Granger to agree to let go of the other two but at least I can let you have this one."

Pansy squealed and flung herself forward. Draco flinched as she barely missed grinding one of her heels into his foot. "You're the best friend a girl could have." She kissed his cheek. "You won't regret it! I'll do a Hades and Persephone theme and we'll have pomegranate punch and - "

"You've already thought about this, I take it," Draco asked her, trying to get her fingers out of his hair. She hadn't actually stopped talking about the dance and she'd moved on to how he could dress as Hades and she'd go as Persephone and he sighed. "Pansy," he said. She kept talking so said it louder. "Pansy!"

"What?" she asked.

"I have to go with Granger. The Heads _always_ go together. It would look _bad_ if I didn't." Pansy looked at him. "Ministerial ambitions don't work out if you can be painted a blood purist who broke decades of tradition to refuse to take the Muggle-born to the Masque."

Pansy frowned for a moment but quickly changed her tune. "I'll get _Blaise_ to be my Hades," she said. "He's cuter than you anyway.

"Have you _asked_ him yet?" Draco asked as she _finally_ got off of him so he could try to get this work started.

"Like he'd say no," Pansy scoffed. "Who else is he going to go with? Daphne threatened to cover him with boils if he ever touched her again after their breakup and Millie's ugly and you know how shallow he is. If it weren't for me he'd have to ask someone younger and that makes him look desperate." She fussed with the strap on her shoe as she asked in a pleased, coy voice, "Have _you_ asked _Granger_ yet?"

"She has to go with me," Draco said. "Tradition and custom and - "

"You might want to ask her before you just assume these things," Pansy said. "She might have different feelings about the importance of going to the Masque with you to save your Ministerial ambitions." She smirked at him. "I'm not sure your political future matters to her given she punched you when we were thirteen. She's not your biggest fan."

"I wasn't prepared," Draco muttered. "And I still can't believe she didn't get a detention for that." He glared down at the homework he really needed to do as Pansy sauntered off and tried not to panic at the idea that all the fantasies he'd had about taking Granger to a dance might not come true. She had to go with him. She did. It was tradition.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Masque

"I think I'll be Mesperyian," Ginny said. "It'll go with the theme."

Hermione stretched out on the couch in what had once been her common room and flipped through the Witch Weekly and groaned. "Could he have come up with a more cliched idea? 'I know,'" she said, mimicking Draco Malfoy's posh accent, "'For Halloween, we'll do a hell theme. So clever, don't you think?'"

"You make him do the work, you lose the opportunity to complain," Ginny said. Hermione grunted in what might have been agreement as she turned another page in her magazine.

"Why the goddess of torture?" Hermione asked. "Seems a bit depressing."

"I happen to know," Ginny said, "That Blaise is going as Hades."

Hermione looked up, her confusion plain.

Ginny grinned. "It'll give me an excuse to call him Daddy later."

"Oh, _gross_ ," said Hermione. "Can I scourgify my ears and brain now?"

"Judgey much?" Ginny asked. "What are you going to go as? My mum?"

"Bitchy much?" Hermione retorted. She tossed the magazine over to Ginny and said, "As tempting as going dressed as a housewife sounds, I thought I'd take my costume in a _slightly_ different direction. What do you think of something like this?"

Ginny let out a low whistle as she studied the black dress. Laced up the back with a flat front, the corset would push her friend's cleavage up and out, while the full skirts would look beautiful on a dance floor. "You'd have to have help getting into it," she said. "What's the conceit?"

"Lady Night," Hermione said. "I'd add a mask, of course."

Ginny nodded approvingly. "Do you plan to coordinate costumes with Malfoy?" she asked. Hermione set her jaw with a stubborn thrust that didn't bode well for this line of questioning but no one had ever accused Ginny Weasley of cowardice. "You _are_ going with Malfoy, aren't you?" she asked. "The Heads _always_ go together and I know he can be a bit of a prat but it would be a major slap in the face if you just went alone."

"I think I could get another date," Hermione said. By now she'd folded her arms as well.

"Doubt it," Ginny said. "The Masque is in two weeks and unless you plan on taking a fourth year or something you're pretty much out of luck at this point." She looked at Hermione's slouched and defensive posture and said, "What is this all about? You don't have to snog him all night; you just show up together, open the dancing, and be civil."

"He hasn't asked me," Hermione said. "I don't care for people just _assuming_ I'm available. I'd rather go alone than be taken for granted by some… prat."

. . . . . . . . . .

"If you don't have the balls to ask her," Blaise said, "I happen to know she's said she'll just go alone."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Draco said. "Some of us have homework, Blaise."

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco Malfoy knew he was a coward. His brain could jump to the worst possible outcome before he could take a breath and it was thus usually easier to just be a snarky prat and make sure no one could actually reject him. From the miserable day Pansy Parkinson had pointed out he had to _ask_ Granger to the Masque because, unlike almost every other girl in Hogwarts, she would throw tradition away because she just…oh, she was so maddening. Why couldn't she just assume they'd go together like every other Head Girl would have done and thus spared him the trouble? He'd done nothing but picture ways she'd turn him down for weeks. Usually these rejections involved her laughing at him, sometimes Draco extended them to her laughing at him _with_ Potter and Weasley.

"Granger," he said after he bolstered his nerve with a shot - or maybe two - of wizard's courage. "I thought we should plan our costumes to match. Heads usually do."

Hermione looked up from the ratty sofa no number of complaints had gotten replaced. "Why?"

"It's tradition," he said helplessly. Maybe he should have had three shots.

She looked back down. "Well," she said, her tone as prissy as he'd ever heard it, "They usually go together so that makes a certain amount of ridiculous sense, but as that doesn't seem to be the case this year, I fail to see why - "

"Who are you going with?" he asked. Pansy was right and he'd well and truly bungled this.

"Apparently I will be going alone," she said. "Everyone assumed…well, it doesn't matter because I am sure I will have a _great_ time dateless at my final Masque. No ridiculous male ego to soothe all night, no one stepping on my toes, no pretending to care about Quidditch. I'll just dance with my girlfriends and be fine."

Draco tried to remember who Hermione Granger's female friends were. Other than Ginny Weasley he couldn't think of any. She tended to spend all her time with Potter and Weasley, neither of whom were, it seemed, taking her to the dance in his stead. "You could go with me?" he suggested.

"Can't," she said.

"Why?" Draco Malfoy prided himself on not wailing but instead on sounding confident and together all the time. Therefore, he had not just wailed.

"You," she said, "have not asked me."

"Oh," he said. He swallowed. "Granger, would you go with me to the Halloween Masque?"

He could have sworn her shoulders sagged in what in any other girl he would have called relief but which couldn't possibly be the case with Granger. "Yes," she said. "But just because we're both Heads."

"Of course," he said. "Right. It's not like it's a _date_ or anything."

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione didn't like feeling nervous about how she looked. Most of the time she just tossed on the uniform, threw an academic robe over it, and called it done. That was the beauty of a uniform: no one could judge you on your clothes. One year she'd even considered dressing up as a schoolgirl for the Masque and just wearing her regular clothing. "It would be _ironic_ ," she'd said to Ginny.

Ginny had rolled up a Quidditch magazine and hit her on the back of the head with it.

This year, for her last Masque, she'd gotten something dressy. _Really_ dressy. The tudor-style black gown cinched her waist in and fluffed up her hips and pushed up her chest. "This style really hides a multitude of sins," she'd said, admiring it.

"Like the fat arse you don't have?" Ginny had asked. "Hold still. I'm lacing."

She'd pinned her curls up instead of straightening her hair, and fixed dozens of tiny rhinestones in her hair to mimic stars to keep her Lady Night conceit going. Six years of Malfoy telling her her hair was bushy, frizzy, out of control, and couldn't fit through a door and she was a tiny bit sensitive on the subject. One drunken assertion she was pretty, however much it had made something churn and clench in her stomach, wasn't enough to undo years of teasing and she almost expected him to come out into their common room and make a comment.

A _mean_ comment _._

She shifted from foot to foot as she waited for him and considered that he might be spending more time on his hair than she had. She didn't even know what he was wearing. She'd told him she was going as the night and he'd muttered that he'd figure something out so they didn't clash and neither of them had brought it up since.

She hoped that meant he wouldn't be dressed as a clown or a devil or something ridiculous like that. Ron had apparently decided to go as a vampire and Lavender had spent the afternoon trying to get the fake wound on her neck to dribble blood that would then disappear instead of running down her chest and collecting in her bra. It was magic quite beyond her capabilities and Hermione hadn't offered to help.

Oh, Merlin. What if Malfoy had done something equally tacky? She should have told him what to wear. And why was he taking go long?

When Malfoy _finally_ opened his door and stepped out it took her a moment to realize what he was. He'd worn the plainest, most elegant black dress robes imaginable and even from across the room she could see the quality of the fabric. She wasn't poor by any stretch of the imagination; two dentists as parents had assured she'd never gone without and her mum hadn't made a sound of protest when Hermione told her the substantial cost of her dress. What Draco had on, however, reminded her he was quite a bit more than not poor. He lifted a mask and she smiled in delight. The otherwise plain domino had a large silver crescent moon he'd somehow charmed to glow just the tiniest bit. "You look… great," she said. "You look… that's very classy."

He pressed his lips together and crinkled his eyes before his face broke into a nervous smile. "I'm glad you like it. I thought it would go well with the night theme."

"Shall we go open the dance?" she asked.

They were halfway there, walking in uncomfortable silence, before he said, "I like your hair that way. It suits you."

"Not too bushy?"

"Just bushy enough, I'd say."

Hermione was wondering how bad it would look if she punched him again right outside the dance when he added, "You look… you're very beautiful," and she decided he might not be _that_ bad.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco had to admit Pansy had done a nice job and, by the way Granger's breath caught for a moment when they walked into the decorated Hall, turned into a ballroom, she seemed to think so too. One side of the room was filled with magical, spring flowers that twined about columns and spilled their petals onto the floor. That spring innocence slowly faded into a dark world on the other side where fog swirled around bowls of bluebell flames. Draco could see a few couples had already found shadowed nooks on the hell side of the room and were taking advantage of the dim lighting to do things that, if Professor Snape caught them, would have them sent away posthaste. Blaise appeared to be one of them and, if the red hair of his companion was any hint, he'd already ditched Pansy.

Unfortunately, the abandoned Pansy was coming over to him and thus heard Granger say, "I'm impressed, Malfoy. I was expecting fire and brimstone with maybe a few bats."

"You don't think _he_ did this?" Pansy demanded. Draco cringed. "This is all my doing, Granger."

Hermione gave Draco a look that wasn't the outrage he'd expected but what looked rather like he'd amused and impressed her at the same time. "Got Parkinson to plan the whole thing?" she asked.

"Down to every last flower petal," Pansy said.

"It's beautiful," Hermione told her.

Pansy thanked her and stalked off on her high heels to extract her date from the clutches of something Draco didn't want to pursue in too much depth, though he began to understand how Blaise had known Hermione had been prepared to just come to this event without a date. If the man wanted to keep his liaison a secret, Draco thought to himself, he might want to extract his tongue from her mouth.

"They can't dance until we do," he said, holding his hand out to Granger. She took his and muttered something about how since they had to, and not to expect much because unlike some pureblood prats she could mention she wasn't exactly athletically gifted and hadn't been in any kind of formal dance class ever.

He had one hand at her waist and another laced through her fingers before he quite processed what she'd said. "You think I'm athletically gifted?" he asked with a smirk as he looked down at her. The mask she had on concealed her expressions, though he could see her lips purse.

"It's fairly obvious you are," she said. She waited until he looked smug and gratified before she added, "Not as much as Harry is, of course, but that's hardly a reasonable standard."

His hand tightened on her waist. Stupid, irritating Harry Potter who'd been given special permission to join the Quidditch team as a first year because he was just so good. Draco wasn't sure he'd ever get over that.

"You're cuter, though," Hermione added, almost as an afterthought. "Harry's so skinny, and his glasses are always half falling off."

"He never brushes his hair," Draco muttered.

"That too," she agreed.

Mollified, Draco pulled her a little closer and inhaled. Her hair smelled of one of those girly shampoos and maybe vanilla. He liked it.

"How did you convince Parkinson to do all of this?"

Draco snorted. "She wanted to," he said. "She already had a theme and plans and a costume picked out." Pansy's obsession with entertaining one was reason they had made a very bad couple during their brief experiment with one another. Well, that and that she preferred girls but didn't want anyone to know because Hogwarts was 'so fucking patriarchal and creepy you know Greg would spend every day nagging to get to watch and no-fucking-thank-you'. Draco didn't have a lot of dating experience but he'd managed to suss out that, long term, a lesbian who cared about things that bored him, like themed parties and shoes, was probably a poor option, at least for him. Somewhere in the world there was a woman who had fervent opinions on mason jars and firefly lights and she and Pansy would ride off into a meticulously thematic sunset wearing very high heels together. That woman was not him. "I have a bit tougher class schedule than Pansy does and I didn't really have time."

"What would you have done?" Hermione asked him as he guided her very carefully around the floor. She hadn't been kidding about not being a good dancer and it was taking a lot of concentration to keep from having his toes crushed. The way he had to pay so much attention to his feet - and to not getting an erection but don't think about that, do _not_ \- was probably why he didn't guard his words.

"Oh, probably as many references to Samhain as I could sneak past the administration," he said, narrowly avoiding her foot again.

He heard the words come out of his mouth and immediately hoped she wouldn't pursue them. As was her habit, Hermione Granger crushed his hopes. "Why?" she asked. "Just to be obnoxious?"

He ignored the sensible voice in his head urging him to just say 'yes' and move on and instead admitted, "Well, no. I mean, it's not exactly fashionable to follow… and because only the old families - "

"The _pureblood_ families?" she asked archly.

Whatever look he gave her worked to shut her up and she closed her mouth and he went on, "The school, the Ministry, they've done everything they can to sort of… not ban, exactly, but… I mean, Easter? What kind of wizard celebrates _Easter_?"

"So you celebrate," she started.

"Well," he said hastily. "I'm not exactly slaughtering the cattle and dancing drunk and naked around a bonfire, but, yeah." The last word was mumbled.

"But you're here," she said, tipping her head to indicate the decorated room with giggling students drinking punch she should probably go and make sure wasn't spiked. "At the Masque."

The song was over and when he realized she wasn't going to let this subject go he sighed and muttered, "I was planning on lighting two tiny fires and walking between them after the dance was over, leaving a tiny offering behind. Just… I mean, I don't _believe_. I'm not an _idiot_ , but… it makes me feel better to do it." He looked at her in her black dress and before he could stop himself asked, "Do you want to come?"

. . . . . . . . . .

When the Masque was over Hermione trailed after Draco Malfoy though deserted corridors and out through an unwatched side door. It was long past curfew and she rehearsed all the excuses she'd offer up if any of the staff found them, but they made it out of the castle unobserved. She shivered in the chill air as she silently followed him in the dark until they reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

When she hesitated he smirked at her. "Scared, Granger?"

"You wish," she muttered, and followed him into the cover of the trees. They didn't go far until they met up with Theo Nott.

He took one look at her and said, "No."

She looked at the lanky boy who stood there with a bag hitched over one shoulder and a lantern in his hands and realized that though she had studied with him for two months she knew absolutely nothing personal about him. They met for their Runes homework and while he was always prepared and a clever thinker, he treated her with the indifferent courtesy a civil person accords a co-worker he doesn't know well. She hadn't expected to see him here, and he clearly hadn't expected to see her.

He wasn't happy about it either. He and Draco held a hissed conversation that she couldn't hear and at last Theo stalked over to her and said, his voice laced with fury and fear she didn't understand, "You can't tell anyone about this, Granger. Not your arrogant little Gryffindor chums, not Dumbledore, not _anyone_." He took a deep breath as he tried to steady himself. "No one likes… this isn't _illegal,_ but Draco's Ministerial career could be… people don't _like_ this. It reeks of Dark Magic and ignorant fools have…you have to _promise_."

Hermione looked nervously at Draco. "We really aren't doing anything bad," he said. "But people get upset." He glared at the other boy. "It's _fine,_ Theo. It's not _banned_. It's not like we're off searching for the Hallows or setting up little shrines to Grindelwald." He looked at Hermione. "Besides," he said. "We can trust her."

"I swear," she said, "Not a word."

Theo looked like he didn't believe her but he knelt down and started brushing leaves away from the dirt and then kindled a tiny fire. "Not quite a bonfire," he said without looking up, "But Dumbledore actively frowns on the old ways and we don't want to attract attention." Draco was making a similar fire and when they were done they both stepped back and scourgified the dirt off their hands.

Draco handed her an apple he'd pocketed from the food laid out at the Masque. "For an offering," he said quietly. "We pass between the fires as a kind of symbolic purification and then leave an offering for the dead."

She nodded, shaken more than she'd expected to be by the sudden seriousness of the two boys. She followed them between the fires, holdings her full skirts in lest they brush against the flames, and then added her apple to the food Theo and Draco had set out. Theo took Draco's hand and held his other one out to her. She wanted to wipe her damp palm on her skirts but too his hand, then Draco's and looked from one to the other as they stood there in a weird little circle in the woods.

"Do you have anyone to remember this year?" Draco asked Theo.

"My mum," the boy said. "Like always." Hermione remembered his mother had died when he was young and that he was one of the handful of student's who'd been able to see the thestrals at that particularly ill-conceived lesson. She'd been horrified at the time that Hagrid had decided it was a good idea to use beasts considered an omen of death as a class project; now she looked at Theo and thought about what it must have been like to have everyone know you'd seen someone die. Her throat tightened.

Theo took a deep breath and turned to her. "Do you have anyone who's passed you'd like to remember tonight?"

She shook her head. Theo squeezed her hand and she turned to Draco and repeated the question.

"No," he said.

They stood there for a moment and Hermione closed her eyes and felt a whisper of magic tickle the back of her neck but before she could analyze it, Draco said, "Well, that's it. Our dangerous, secret, old-family magic." Theo laughed and the spell, whatever it had been, was broken and they put out the fires and headed back to the castle. They were halfway there, walking in silence with the lantern extinguished, when Draco took her hand.

She let her fingers lace through his.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco had tossed his dress robes in the bag to send back to the Manor for care and gotten into a pair of far more comfortable - but equally black - pajamas when there was a knock on the door of his room. His heart rate immediately spiked.

The only people who could get into the Heads' common room were the Heads themselves and school administrators. He knew he wasn't knocking on his door and the idea it would be Granger was ludicrous so he immediately assumed Severus Snape - or Merlin help him, Albus Dumnbledore - was standing outside his door waiting to talk to him about his little unauthorized stroll down to the Forbidden Forest.

 _caught caught caught caught caught_

His heart pounded and he wiped his hands on the soft fabric of his pajamas and reminded himself that observing Samhain wasn't banned - yet - so the worst that could happen would be a rambling lecture accompanied by lemon drops and false assurances that the Headmaster had his best interests at heart. He swallowed hard and opened the door.

Hermione Granger stood there.

He was so relieved he almost laughed. He leaned up against the door frame and felt his panic recede and let his eyes trace over the way the woman's breasts spilled not-quite-far-enough out of her corset. "Can I help you?" he asked. Please, oh please, let her want to get naked.

"I can't get this thing off," she muttered.

Draco blinked a few times. Never before had a prayer come true quite so quickly. He was about to say something but Hermione had already turned around. "Ginny tied the knot so tightly I can't get it undone. Do you think you could - ?" She reached a hand back and yanked on the bottom of the laces and he could see the problem. He bent down and tried to undo the knot and got nowhere.

"Come into the room so I can see it in the light," he said. Once she was by his desk with a glowing wand tucked between books illuminating the black laces he tried to wiggle the knot undone. "Circe," he swore as he fought with it. "How did you get this _on_?"

"Ginny," Hermione muttered. "She promised it wouldn't slip off." The woman braced herself against the wall as he struggled with the knot and when he finally got it free and began loosening the top she visibly sagged. "I can breathe again."

She began pulling the laces through their holes until the corset top just hung on her and she turned to face him, one hand holding her clothing up. "Thanks," she said. "I didn't want to have to go all the way up to the Tower and explain why I was even still in it."

"Yeah," Draco said. "That might have been hard to explain." He put one hand on his desk and leaned on it, but that left his bending over too far so he straightened up. Then he tried leaning against the foot of the bed but that didn't quite work either. He finally ended up just standing in the narrow space between his bed and his desk, the closet behind him. He hoped he'd remembered to shut the closet door and Hermione Granger wasn't seeing his bag of dirty laundry behind his shoulder.

There was probably a pair of pants sticking out of the bag.

He tried not to think about that and smiled at her. "Good Masque," he said.

"Yeah," she said. She used the hand that wasn't holding her dress up to reach up to push a curl behind her ear, which was funny to see because she hadn't unpinned her hair so there was nothing for her to push back. She let her hand drop back to her side. "Hard to believe it's the last one."

"I know," he said. He'd had conversations with his father's political friends about tax policy and limitations on foreign potion ingredients imports and impressed them. Why couldn't he think of a single thing to say to this girl? "We've still got the Yule Ball, though."

"And the Easter Cotillion," she said.

"Right," he said. "Easter."

The stood there again, and he tried to shove a hand down into a pocket and his pajamas had no pockets so that ended up not working out and he tried to cover the motion by scratching at his leg.

"I guess I should go," Hermione said. "Homework and stuff to do tomorrow. Thanks for helping me get this thing undone."

"It looked great on you," Draco said as she slipped past him to leave. He noted her red lipstick had gotten smudged off some time during the Masque and he wondered when that had happened, and he wished it had disappeared because he'd kissed it off, and that thought made him he decide to say something suave and sophisticated, something like what Blaise would say, something that would get her to stay.

Unfortunately, "It would look better on my floor" was what came out of his mouth.

She gaped at him in shock before her mouth closed in a furious line and she raised a hand to slap him before she thought better of it and instead just slammed his door as hard as she could before stomping off to her room.

"Prat," he heard her say loudly enough the words carried through the wall. "Insufferable _prat_."


	3. Chapter 3 - The Fall

Hermione slammed her Runes book down on the table in the library so loudly Madam Pince looked over at them and glared. Hermione ignored her and banged her chair several times as she sat down. Theo looked over at the librarian nervously but Hermione just yanked out a quill and threw it down on the table.

Quills seem like they'd be quiet things but, with enough force behind them, anything can make a clatter.

"Uh, where's Draco?" Theo asked.

"I wouldn't know," Hermione said, tossing her robe off so it hung along the back of the chair and adjusting a stretched out jumper that had been at least two sizes two large before the knit had gotten mangled and pulled. "Maybe he's lying on his floor, the worthless prat."

Madam Pince hissed a shush at them and Theo slouched lower in his chair. Any sensible person was afraid of the feather duster wielding dragon in the library. She didn't even seem to like books, which was odd for a librarian, but she absolutely hated students. She especially hated noisy students. "Why would Draco be on his floor?" Theo asked, obviously trying to follow Hermione's logic.

"I wouldn't know," she said. "Apparently things look good there." She opened her Runes book with terrifying vigor and said, "I think the assignment was to translate the passage in chapter four so why don't we get started?"

"Without Draco?" Theo confirmed.

"Draco Malfoy is completely not necessary to my understanding of early inscriptions and their bearing on the development of magical processes in Iceland in the tenth century," Hermione said. "He is wholly superfluous, in fact. Extraneous. Unwanted." She picked up her quill. "Now, do we work or would you prefer to go back to Marietta Edgecombe as a study partner?"

"What did you get for the third Rune?" Theo asked her, trying to hide his curiosity about what had brought this tirade on. "If the scratch above it is an accent mark it changes the whole meaning of the passage."

"I read it as a flaw in the stone," Hermione said. They compared the different interpretations they'd had of the questionable rune and were making good progress on producing a smooth translation when Draco arrived.

He tossed his leather bag down on the table and slid into a chair. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "Had to get an internship application done and off before the deadline."

"We did just fine without you," Hermione hissed. "Don't think you get to copy our work now that you've deigned to join us."

Draco was in the middle of pulling out his copy of _Runes for the Advanced Student_ when Hermione muttered 'prat.' "Salazar's snake, Granger," he said as he looked at her. "Are you on your monthly or something? What gives?"

Her eyes widened and she sucked in air through her nostrils. "You... mediocre pureblood… pureblood," she ground out in what might not have been the most eloquent insult she'd ever managed. "How dare you?" She snatched up her book and shoved it into her own bag. "Translate it on your own." She whirled and, snatching her robe, stormed off to the sound of another 'be _quiet_ ' from the librarian.

Theo looked at the gobsmacked Draco Malfoy. "Sometimes," he said. "I think you are a giant idiot." He began to slip his own materials back into his satchel. "We have to follow her," he said. He considered for a moment. "Well, _you_ have to follow her and I'm not missing this."

"What?" Draco asked. "Why? I didn't do anything. I did have to get that application out; it was important."

If Theo Nott's eyes had rolled any harder they would have fallen out of his head.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco managed to say, "What the bloody hell - " before Hermione whipped her wand out in their common room and turned on him.

"You… knucklehead," she hissed. "You imbecile. You… oh, I see you've brought an audience." She sounded increasingly displeased with him and Draco stared at her. He'd just been a little late. He'd really had to get that application out. He hadn't seen her since the night of the Masque and now she was acting like this. What was her problem?

Theo Nott raised a hand in a gesture that could have been a greeting and could have been a placating motion to ward off an angry Kneazle. "Hullo, Granger," he said. "Don't mind me."

"Just here for the show, are you?" she asked, her knuckles tight around her wand.

"Actually, here to get a chance to see your dorm," he replied. "Draco hasn't let anyone in, said it was better to meet in the Slytherin common room if we wanted to socialize." Theo made a show of looking around. "I begin to see why."

"It's the newest thing in spoiled prat themed decor," Hermione said. She still had her wand leveled at him and Draco began to consider that he might really be in trouble, as bizarre and unlikely as that seemed. "It's just _cunning_ , isn't it. Just deceptively _charming._ It lures you in and makes you overlook things you shouldn't until you remember it's just a worthless _dump_." She took a deep breath and Draco stared at her, a confused niffler caught in the lumos of her fury. "The floor could use a little updating, though, or so I've been told."

"I… what are you on about?" Draco demanded, lost. He turned to Theo, ignoring the wand pointed at him, and asked, "What is she talking about? Is this some girl period thing?"

" _Avis_ ," Hermione nearly shrieked and Draco spun back to her to see a flock of yellow canaries appear from the end of her wand. He almost laughed. It was such an incongruous little spell, something a fourth year might have done, and he missed her whispered " _oppugno"_ until it was too late.

Canaries attacked him.

They actually _attacked_ him and he raised his arms and tried to protect his face as tiny, yellow balls of fury flung themselves at him, beaks out. Hermione rushed from the room, leaving him to the mercy of her spell, as he yelped and batted at one miniature assailant after another. Theo sighed and muttered, "Wizards," before pulling out his wand and banishing the canaries with one simple spell.

"She's _crazy_ ," Draco said once the birds were gone. "Totally mental."

"Let me give you a little bit of advice," Theo said.

"About girls?" Draco snorted derisively. "Coming from you, that's ironic."

Theo ignored him. "One, whatever she's talking about with the floor thing, figure it out, because she brought the floor up to me too."

Draco's eyes suddenly widened and he muttered, "Shite. She's… yeah. I fucked up."

"Two, never _ever_ ask a girl if she's bleeding. Never. Or pregnant, by the way. Not unless you see a head actually coming out."

"Granger's not pregnant."

"Try to keep up here, Draco," Theo said with a sigh. "And you with all the Outstandings on your O.W.L.s., too."

. . . . . . . . . .

Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy adored one another but they tended to fight in a way that involved throwing things. Narcissa specialized in throwing exorbitantly expensive crystal figurines of cats. They always made up quickly, and Draco had learned the hard way to knock before entering any room with a closed door at any time but _especially_ within several hours of another shattered cat. He'd also learned that flowers helped smooth things along from the shattered glass stage to the 'don't interrupt your parents' stage.

By the time Hermione came back, Draco had transfigured enough rubbish he'd found in the random cupboards of their wretched common room into flowers that the place looked like a shop. She stopped in the doorway. "What's going on?"

"I," Draco said, "am an arse."

"Yes," she agreed. "That does not explain _this_." She waved her hand to indicate the flowers. There were flowers on the stained counter. Flowers on the rickety table. Flowers balanced on the windowsill.

"You make me nervous," Draco said. Hermione shut the door behind her and stared at him and he decided to take that as encouragement and went on. "I want you to like me but it seems impossible and I wish I could just be interested in someone easier, like Daphne, but I'm not, and - "

"Stop," Hermione said, holding her hand out. "You're really bad at this."

Draco could feel his jaw thrust out in sullen irritation.

"But this is very sweet," she said. "Even if I'm apparently more difficult than Daphne."

"You are," he muttered. "The thing about your dress on my floor… I'm sorry. It was a… I didn't mean it."

She began to smile at him.

"I mean," he babbled on, "I _meant_ it. I'd love for you to decide you wanted to take your clothes off, I mean, anytime, be my guest, but it came out wrong and now you're offended and mad and …why are you laughing?"

Hermione was, indeed, laughing. She had pressed both hands to her mouth as though she could somehow push the giggles back in, but it was helpless and they spilled out, louder and louder with each thud of his heart. "You are such a… a…you are such a _dork_ ," she said.

"I am not," Draco crossed his arms and glared at her. "I'm one of five final candidates to spend next year clerking for the Chief Warlock, I have outstanding marks, and I'm Head Boy. I am _not_ a dork."

"You're also the Slytherin Seeker," Hermione pointed out, still laughing. She stepped toward him, avoiding a potted lemon tree he was particularly proud of because it had started the day as a broken wine carafe with a carved badger on it. That had been a very tricky bit of transfiguration.

"I am," he agreed.

"And you look good in your Quidditch leathers," she said.

"Do I?" Draco asked as she took another step nearer.

"Yes," she said. She was right next to him and he bit his lip as she reached a hand out to touch his hair. "And so pale," she said. "You almost don't look real."

"Family trait," he said. "Can't go out in the sun. I just burn, and - "

The he stopped talking because she kissed him and even though he was quite sure she needed to apologize for bloody well attacking him with canaries, he decided he was going to let that pass just this one time because she tasted like chocolate and whiskey. Any girl who'd run off and buried her anger at him that way was a girl who liked him. He was an idiot, as Theo kept telling him, but he knew that much.

She pulled her mouth off his to mumble, "Sorry about the bird thing."

"Sorry I was a jerk," he answered her.

"Still," she said, "I shouldn't have done that."

"Mmm," he said, because she really shouldn't have, and then returned to the agreeable task of nibbling at her lower lip until she opened her mouth and they stopped apologizing and began agreeing, albeit without words, that perhaps they should get to know one another better.

. . . . . . . . . .

"I don't see why is has to be a secret!"

Now that Theo had been admitted into the grim Heads' dorm they'd started meeting there to study instead of in the library. Avoiding Madam Pince was never a bad plan, and, while the Heads' common room might be filled with furniture badly in need of burning, it didn't have screeching firsties or shoe-obsessed Pansies demanding your opinion of this newest shoe and was it glorious or absurd because she couldn't quite tell.

"It just does," Draco said in frustration. They'd been going in circles about this for almost an hour. He and Theo kept trying to explain that she couldn't march up to Dumbledore's office and insist he explain why they celebrated Halloween which was, after all, really a Muggle holiday, instead of Samhain.

"It isn't even in the curriculum," she said. "There's that stupid Muggle Studies class, which might as well be retitled, 'Trivial Things Explained Badly,' but no classes about actual wizarding culture."

"Muggle Studies is wrong?" Theo asked curiously. He'd never taken the elective, of course. He, like most of the aristocratic purebloods, had no interest in the Muggle world at all. Even if the class wasn't widely regarded as a gut class for lazy fools, he wouldn't have signed up, but he found it curious an actual Muggle-born was so dismissive of it.

Hermione made a face. "I looked at the text once," she said. "It's… imagine a class on the wizarding world that spent an entire chapter talking about a popular singer from 20 years ago but never once mentioned that owls deliver the mail."

"That figures," Theo muttered and he and Draco exchanged a look that Hermione caught. The modern emphasis on all things Muggle irritated them both, and certainly irritated their parents. In recent years the Ministry had begun to first regulate and then flat out ban practices that were deemed 'unsocial' or 'Muggle-baiting' and both their families felt it was part of an overall plan to consolidate control over magic use in the hands of the government. At first people had been encouraged to not let children have wands until they were old enough to go to Hogwarts, and then a ban had been put in place on underage magic and you simply couldn't _buy_ a wand until it was time to go to Hogwarts. It wasn't enforceable, really. It certainly wasn't enforceable in magical families, but you could only do so much teaching a child with a wand that wasn't suited to them. About half the magical families in Britain still home-schooled but there was more and more of a push to make Hogwarts mandatory, or at least to not allow people under seventeen to have a wand if they weren't at the government run school.

Public safety was always the reason given. Untrained witches and wizards are a hazard. Standardizing education is good for everyone. Because Muggle-borns _had_ to be educated at school it was easy to imply people who wanted to teach their children at home were prejudiced.

Some were, of course. Greg Goyle certainly was. Even people who weren't tended to use slurs with casual indifference. Draco knew if he wanted to get ahead in Ministry politics - and he really, really did - he had to excel at Hogwarts and toe the modern line that embraced all things Muggle as being open-minded and rejected the hedge witches and pagan rituals and unregulated, unregistered magics as dangerous. He just didn't know how to explain multiple decades of the slow creep of government into the lives of ordinary wizards to the outraged Muggle-born witch sitting on the couch with him. Gellert Grindelwald's nearly successful attempt to take over the continent had started the headlong rush toward rules and rules and more rules. The self-styled Lord Voldemort's less successful attempt to take over Britain had confirmed for a lot of people that only a strong government could protect them from Dark wizards.

"You just can't," Draco repeated helplessly. "He'd just pat you on the head and tell you it was sweet you were interested in old superstitions but - "

"But it was _magic_ ," she said again. "I _felt_ it."

"I know," Theo said. "I know. But you can't go to Dumbledore."

"Then who?" Hermione demanded.

Draco sighed. "What do you want to know?" he asked.

Hermione looked annoyingly smug at what he supposed was his capitulation. "Everything," she said. "Teach me _everything_."

. . . . . . . . . .

"You dance _naked_?" Hermione set the glass of pumpkin juice down and stared at Pansy in horror. "In the _fields_?"

Pansy Parkinson made a show of reapplying her lipstick. "That's the theory," she confirmed. "Not that I, of course, have ever done it." She lowered her tiny mirror to smirk at Hermione. "There are insects in fields and I do not care to have tiny things that bite nibbling upon my nether regions. Plus, I work hard to keep my feet in a state of pedicured perfection and tromping around some hay strewn field is not on my to-do list." She lifted the mirror back up and returned to the important task of ensuring her red paint was flawless. "I can just imagine what Lucinda would say if I went into the salon with my heels all toughened up from dancing outdoors barefoot."

Pansy did not opt to share what this Lucinda would have said but her exaggerated shudder implied it would not have been mild.

"Then you have sex," Draco said with a leer that made Pansy sigh.

"But _why_?" Hermione asked.

"To make the fields fertile," Theo said. "You fuck away like rabbits in heat and the fields take a hint and, bam, out come lots of crops." He wrinkled his nose. "This assumes you like having sex with girls, of course."

Pansy lowered her mirror and eyed Theo. He caught her glance and corrected himself. "This assumes you like going at it with a member of the opposite sex."

"Another reason _not_ to go about getting scratched up, bitten, and itchy in some antiquated ritual that no one even likes to talk about," Pansy said. "Penises." She gave another one of her exaggerated shudders.

"I like penises," Theo said.

"As you have one, or so I assume, that is probably good." Theo began to undo his trousers and stopped only when Pansy added, "I do _not_ need confirmation of your genitalia, thank you very much."

Hermione ignored the pair of them to focus on what she felt was far more important. "But does it work?"

"Oh yes," Theo said, rebuttoning. "Samhain works. Beltane works. It all _works_. It's a bit imprecise, especially compared to the Latin spells we memorize in classes, but it's magic and it responds to the will of the magician."

"Though perhaps scientific testing would be best?" Draco suggested. "We plant two fields, do a Beltane ritual in one, see which has the better yield."

"You just want her to have sex with you in a field," Pansy said. She seemed to considered the prospect before adding, "My suggestion is, don't." She stood up and stretched her legs. "Well, I'm off. As fun as it's been discussing things I'll never do with your losers, it's time to go to the Quidditch pitch."

"Why?" Draco asked. "There's no game." He looked suddenly nervous and summoned his planner to flip through it. "There wasn't an extra practice scheduled for today, was there? I'd planned to drill myself on alternate rune forms."

He was still turning pages, looking practically for some note that he'd forgotten to write down an appointment, when Pansy asked, "Why would I go watch the Slytherin team practice?"

"To be supportive?" Draco suggested.

She looked at him for a long moment before saying, with a dramatic sigh, "It's as if you don't even know me. No, you idiot. I'm going to admire the view."

"What view?" Draco demanded.

Pansy, however, had tossed her hair and strode off on gloriously impractical purple velvet boots.

"What view?" Draco repeated.

Theo yanked the planner out of his friend's hands and found the folded parchment with the full Quidditch practice schedule. "Ravenclaw is practicing today," he said.

The two boys looked at one another and said in unison, "Cho Chang."

"That _sneak_ ," Draco said in admiration.

"You know," Theo said, "I feel it would be a grand gesture of inter-House unity to go show our support for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team." He turned to Hermione. "You coming?"

Hermione looked at the notes on Beltane she had spread out on table and sighed. "I guess," she said. "Why does it always have to be Quidditch? Why can't we go make Pansy uncomfortable while she ogles someone in the library?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Ron put his hands around his neck and made a throttling motion when he saw Hermione and Draco, hands entwined. "Hermione," he said in a mock wail. "How could you do this to me? Him? Malfoy? Of all the guys you could have fallen for, it had to be the Seeker on our main rival?" Harry and Neville, walking at his side, both stepped out of range, wise to what was about to happen.

Hermione swung the bag she had in her free hand so it hit him on the back of the leg. "Watch it, Ron," she said. "I put up with Lav-Lav and how she slobbers all over you and I only pretended to vomit once. I think you owe me."

"Technically," Harry said from where he stood, "you weren't pretending."

"I meant to be pretending," she said, judging whether she could reach him with her bag as well. Harry, however, was both a good judge of distance and had been friends with Hermione for a long time. "It's not my fault a carrot got stuck in my throat and I ended up having to cough it up."

"Along with some stew," Harry said.

"Along with some stew," she agreed. "It was a very vigorous cough."

Theo was trying not to laugh. "Oh, go ahead and laugh," Ron said sullenly. "It was disgusting. She threw up all over the 'Sweetheart' necklace Lav gave me for Christmas. It was too gross to think about ever wearing it again. I had to bin it."

Harry eyed Ron. "You hated that," he pointed out. "It was the tackiest thing you'd ever seen was what I think you said. You can like the girl and still think she went overboard there for a bit. Because she did, mate. She really did."

"Where are you off to?" Neville asked, trying to ignore the way Ron and Harry were huffing at one another as Ron tried to pretend he'd really quite liked the necklace, the chain had just been a little too short to wear, and Harry pointed out that Lav hadn't exactly cut off blow jobs when he'd refused to wear the thing so he could stop pretending it hadn't been ridiculous.

"The pitch," Theo said. He and Neville sized one another up. "Have we met before?"

"Neville Longbottom," Neville said, holding out his hand and keeping his eyes locked on Theo's. "Gryffindor, so we probably never had classes together if your green tie is accurate, so possibly no. Also, I grew about three inches over the summer so it's also possible you just don't recognize me."

"Theo Nott, Slytherin," Theo replied, taking the proffered hand. "Maybe that's it."

Draco took off down the corridor. "Come _on_ ," he said, his hand still wrapped around Hermione's. "Theo, Theo's hot new friend, let's _go_."

"Why the urgency," Neville asked as Ron and Harry shook their heads and headed off in their original direction, away from the pitch. He fell into step alongside Theo right at the edge of the other man's personal space.

"Mockery," Theo said. "And mocking Pansy Parkinson is one of those things that gives life meaning."

"That and sex," said Neville.


	4. Chapter 4 - The Yule Ball

Draco hated being bored. He'd studied as much as he could reasonably study, all his essays were done, he'd even organized the whole of the Yule Ball because Granger had claimed she wasn't very social and didn't know much about throwing parties and he'd done such a good job with the Halloween Masque. She'd given him one of those amused and smug looks at that, the kind that made him want to ravish her on the spot. That she found his tendency toward underhanded manipulation charming was the _biggest_ turn on.

He was so bored. So, so bored. Merlin, there wasn't even a single application left he could fill out for even the most unimpressive political internship.

He was still irritated with his father. If only he had been able to keep his nose a little cleaner Draco would have been able to walk into any prestigious position he wanted! Though as Draco said to anyone who would listen, there hadn't been a conviction and to judge a man, or, more to the point, a man's son, on the basis of unsubstantiated rumors was quite unfair.

So very unfair.

His father was guilty, of course, but that was hardly relevant.

So Draco sat, bored, in his unpleasant common room, and began flicking wadded up pieces of parchment at Hermione Granger's hair. _She_ wasn't done studying. She was never done studying. He was fairly sure she would be studying on her death bed.

He flicked another bit of parchment at her. It got stuck in a curl and he grinned and ripped an even smaller piece off his sheet and squished it up.

"If you actually want to live long enough to be the youngest Minister of Magic ever," she said without turning around, "you'll stop that."

"Granger," he whinged. "I'm bored. Come kiss me." He could see her shoulders shake in what was probably suppressed laughter. "You know you want to snog the youngest Minister ever."

She turned at that and she was laughing. "You aren't Minister _yet_ ," she said. "Right now you're just a pain in my arse."

He bit his lip and looked at her. "Do you really think I'll do it?" he asked. "Be youngest Minister ever, I mean?"

Hermione Granger considered him seriously and he squirmed a little under that gaze. She had the look on her face that meant she was about to be honest in that brutal way she could be. He'd heard her tell a prefect she was an incompetent fool when she had that look on her face, and she told Potter off almost daily while wearing that expression.

She had opinions about an annotated textbook Potter had somehow gotten his hands on for Potions. It's _cheating_ , she would insist. Draco just wanted to get his hands on the book and make a copy. He'd even practiced his duplication spells so he'd only need a few minutes. So far, Granger had refused to help him at all in his quest to snag Potter's marked up spell book which was _incredibly aggravating_ of her. He was getting curious enough to even consider just asking Potter to borrow it, which was pretty curious given how irritating stupid Potter was with his stupid Quidditch following and his stupid collection of Snitches.

Seeing that 'I'm going to be honest now' look on her face made Draco sorry he'd asked. He'd rather not have his girlfriend - she _was_ his girlfriend, right? - tell him he had no chance of fulfilling that particular goal.

"I think so," was what she said, however. "I mean, at least you have a better chance than most."

Draco covered his look of astonished gratification with smug arrogance. "Well, of course," he said.

"You're smart," she said, ignoring his smirk, "and from a political family, and an insider, and you've walked that line of not being a prejudiced arsehole pretty well." She shrugged. "I'm sure dating me won't hurt your reputation as a modern thinker. 'That Malfoy, dated a Muggle-born in school, he's not mired in dated pureblood thinking' and all that."

"You don't think that's why I - "

Hermione shrugged. "You can't pretend that hasn't occurred to you," she said. "But if I thought that was the main reason why? I'd have cursed you in your sleep by now."

Her smile made it clear she meant it. Draco sometimes considered that Hermione was far more terrifying than any Slytherin he'd ever known. She was more terrifying than his _mother_ , which was saying something as he was pretty sure his mum could out-think and out-deceive the devil himself.

She set her quill down and stretched. "I don't need to start getting ready for the Yule Ball for a bit, and this essay is about as revised as it can be."

"Kisses?" Draco asked in a reasonably decent mimicry of pathetic tone he'd gotten the first time she'd gotten him drunk.

"Kisses," she agreed, and he grinned. He was about to not be bored, his girlfriend - she was his girlfriend, right? - thought he had a good shot at being the youngest Minister ever, and tonight was a party. Life was great.

. . . . . . . . . .

"I didn't realize they were dating."

Harry had a glass of punch in his hand and he, Ron, and Hermione were standing watching Neville Longbottom and Theodore Nott engage in what appeared to be some kind of tactile examination of one another's tonsils. Draco had disappeared into a maw of Yule Ball problems which he, as the main organizer, was informed he needed to go solve tout de suite. Lavender had similarly disappeared, though her destination was a gaggle of friends who had their heads pressed together. Harry was dateless as Cho Chang had at last told him to please stop hovering around her, that yes she and Cedric had broken up, but she wasn't interested, thank you and goodbye. This left the three of them to stare in morbid fascination at Neville and Theo.

"Is that dating?" Hermione asked as Theodore's hand roamed over Neville's arse. "I thought dating involved going places."

"I think they're going places," Ron said. "Aren't you, as Head Girl, supposed to break things like that up?"

Hermione gave him an irritated look. "I am quite sure being the morality police wasn't in the job description," she said. "And, besides, given what you and Lavender do at the breakfast table, I don't think you have the high ground here." She took a sip of her own punch and swore. It was spiked. Was this a problem she cared about enough to address, she wondered, and if so how long did she want to give it? If she just feigned ignorance it would be so much less work and once Draco got the wee problem of no band straightened out she could enjoy herself.

She'd come to the conclusion she hated being Head Girl. People didn't behave acceptably, they broke pointless rules, and she was supposed to make them stop. It was a thankless, miserable job with a crappy dorm and no payment except a tacky little badge and she'd had enough. It boggled her mind Draco wanted to be Minister of Magic. There wasn't enough money in the world for her to enter politics.

No, she was going to do some good in the world.

She wasn't exactly sure what that meant, exactly, but it would _not_ involve breaking up inappropriate displays of public affection or policing other people's alcohol intake. Maybe she could write a book on how non-human species rights evolved over time. She was sure if people just understood how wrong they were about mermaids and werewolves their attitudes would change. Look at Harry's godfather's partner: Remus was the nicest man you could ever hope to meet other than his furry little problem that turned him into a ravening beast once a month.

Merlin, her period often made her wish she could just tear people's heads off and claw them to shreds once a month. She had _sympathy_. She could write her book and then other people would see how wrong they were. Or maybe a different book. Writing a book seemed like a good goal.

"I didn't even know Neville was gay," Harry was saying. "I mean, he never mentioned it."

"I think it's pretty clear he's gay," Hermione said. Theo and Neville had backed into a wall and she had a horrible feeling Neville, whose back was to her, might have undone his trousers. She couldn't see anything and she decided that as long as she could claim technical ignorance, she wasn't interrupting them. That would be an uncomfortable conversation.

"Why would he bring it up to you?" Ron demanded. "You're so oblivious to anything that doesn't directly affect you that you didn't even notice Cho's a lesbian. And it's pretty clear you like girls, even if you are bad at picking them."

"Cho's a _what?_ " Harry demanded.

"Oh, honestly, Harry," Hermione said. "Where have you been?"

"Defense Against the Dark Arts has been kind of sucking my soul away this term," Harry admitted. "Why, for Godric's sake, did I sign up for that?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Hermione had been feeling grouchy all day, a feeling she had repressed. She didn't like parties, the Yule Ball was sure to be a pain, and that was why she was so out of sorts. When the band didn't show up and Draco had to go off and solve that problem her general sense of fury at the world increased.

Would it really be asking that much for people to just be _competent_?

Then the punch was spiked and Theo and Neville were just the first in a series of couples who apparently had _no_ sense of public decency. People were pawing each other and groping and feeling and in one case she saw far too much of, licking. _Licking!_ Who licked her partner's neck in the dark corner of a school dance? It was utterly, wholly, and miserably inappropriate.

By the time Draco had tracked down the errant musicians, who had stopped for a quick pint in Aberforth's filthy pub and ended up getting into some complicated goat cricket game she did not want to think about in any detail but which had resulted in an actual sodding _goat_ on the stage with the band.

"Well, we won, you see," the pissed guitar player had told her. At least, that's what she thought he'd said. The words had been sufficiently slurred there had been a bit of guess work on her part but the band had climbed onto the stage and demonstrated that neither alcohol intake nor bovidae acquisition impeded their ability to play and that problem had been solved.

Neville and Theo had, mercifully, disappeared so _that_ problem had been solved.

And Draco had led her to the dance floor and she was prepared to finally start enjoying herself and so she ignored the unpleasant sensation of damp oozing between her legs because vaginas could be weird and let him squire her about and let him lead her to a seat afterward and let him fetch her a glass of _un_ spiked punch because that problem had been solved too, thanks to a pair of Gryffindor boys who'd made off with the entire original bowl and were probably making themselves ill in some remote classroom and were _not her problem_. And everything was going just fine as she ignored the lower back pain that was surely a sign of how tense this whole dance was making her. Two school year dances that were the Heads' responsibilities down, and one to go.

She stood up to go dance again and then turned to glare at Pansy Parkinson as the irritating Slytherin with her upturned nose and her high heels grabbed her shoulder and said, "Come with me to the loo, Granger."

"What?" Hermione demanded. "No."

Pansy had almost plastered herself to Hermione's back and said, "I really must insist, Granger. I need your help with something."

"In the toilet?" Hermione demanded. "Now? Can't it wait?"

"No," Pansy said. "It really can't."

Pansy hustled her out of the main ballroom area, leaving behind a befuddled Draco Malfoy. Pansy stayed right behind her, almost shoving her along, and Hermione wondered how it was the woman managed not to trip on her heels or the hem of Hermione's white dress when she was walking almost on top of her.

They made it to the girl's toilet and the door had just shut when Hermione demanded to know what it was that was so urgent Pansy needed to talk about it - and to her of all people - right then and there. She was gearing up to continue her rant when Pansy pulled a tampon from her purse, waved it under Hermione's nose, and said, "How good are your cleaning charms? Because, one, congratulations, you aren't pregnant, and two, unless they're truly excellent, that white silk dress is toast."

Hermione twisted to look at the back of her dress. "No," she said as she saw the not insubstantial red stain. "Just no." She threw her own tiny white purse at the wall, where it connected with a crash and sent lipstick, compact, and breath mints spilling out across the floor.

"Not good at cleaning charms then?" Pansy asked. "Or did you just really want to be in that family way?"

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco Malfoy was afraid. He was _very_ afraid. Hermione had never returned to the Ball after Pansy hustled her away and the revelation she'd gotten her period and felt lousy and should be left alone was information he took very seriously.

Hermione Granger was scary when she _wasn't_ hormonal. Four months into living with her and he'd had ample opportunity to observe what she was like when she was. She threw things. At his head.

Well, he assumed they were supposed to be at his head and that she had bad aim. It was possible she just liked to throw things in his general direction and that she hit the wall, the chair, the floor was on purpose.

He let her sleep in because he was afraid to wake the beast. This would have been fine if he hadn't told her, when she did finally stagger from her room in search of hot tea, hot water bottles, and chocolate that he had let her sleep in and why.

"Wake the _what_?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice.

Draco Malfoy was not actually a stupid boy, despite the way Hermione Granger seemed to inculcate in him a serious case of foot in mouth disease. Even if he had been stupid, like any animal caught in the stare of a predator, the look she gave him would have made him roll over and show her his soft undebelly.

"Do you want me to go down to Hogsmeade and get you chocolate," he asked in an attempt to head her off before she, well, beheaded him. "I don't need to wait for a regular trip, I'm Head Boy, I can just go - "

"If you had an organ in _your_ body swell to almost twice its normal size every month," she said, still using that low voice, "making you feel bloated and miserable and _you_ had back pain and cramps that are remarkably like childbirth, or so I have been told, because it is uterine contractions, and _you_ had blood that came out of your vagina that you couldn't control and that ruined every nice pair of knickers you bought because, hey, who doesn't want nothing but an endless series of period pants? If you had all these things _then_ you _might_ be able to say something about _waking the beast."_

 _"_ It was a bad choice of words," he said touching his pocket to make sure his wand was there just in case. "I meant I wanted to let you sleep in. I'm sure it's not as bad as childbirth - "

"And you know this _how?_ " she asked.

Draco took a step backward.

"I just, I, uh - "

"And now my dress is _ruined_ ," she said with what sounded like a wail. "And it's because I'm just so stupid and idiotic and I should have _known_ but I didn't and I'm sure everyone saw and - "

"No, it's fine," Draco said. "Pansy… I was standing right there and I didn't… is the dress really _ruined_?"

"I guess it depends how you feel about a white ball gown with a big red spot on the arse," she said, and then she flung herself onto the couch and began to sob.

Draco sat gingerly next to her, still afraid he'd set her off again, and patted her shoulder. "It's okay," he said. "You looked better at the Halloween Masque anyway."

That, he reflected later, after he'd removed the asses ears she'd charmed onto his head and spent enough money on chocolate that he could have bought a new broom, had probably been the wrong thing to say.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco licked his lips nervously. Hermione hadn't thrown anything at him since he'd lumbered in, weighed down with chocolate and apologies. She'd just curled up on the sofa and lay there, shoving one chocolate after another in her mouth and adjusting a hot water bottle. He'd summoned Dobby, who'd bowed and scraped and been his usual irritating elfy self, but had been thrilled to take the white dress back to the Manor to see what he could do with it. Draco had stared in some consternation at the giant red stain as the elf popped away promising the dress would be "As-good-as-new-only-better-because-this-trim-is-I-think-not-good Dobby-is-a-bad-elf-for-having-such-thoughts but-it-true bye-now."

Hermione Granger glowered at the place where Dobby had been.

"He has that effect on people," Draco offered. "He… he's very… he's very _passionate_ about being a good elf." Dobby was. And Draco hoped he hadn't gone off to slam his ears in things for having have the temerity to express a negative thought about a witch's dress.

Hermione burrowed down further into the sofa and said nothing.

"You aren't _dying_ , are you?" Draco asked, trying not to sound nervous. He didn't think she was dying - periods _were_ normal - but she seemed like she was in a lot of pain and that couldn't possibly be right. "I mean, that looked like a lot of blood on that dress. I don't need to get Madam Pomfrey, do I?"

Hermione let out a noise that might have been disgust and which Draco took to mean that she was fine and he was worrying about nothing. He sat down opposite her and bit the inside of his cheek and bobbed his head a few times and tried to think of how he could make her feel better.

"You know," he said. "I read somewhere that menstrual blood can be used in a lot of spells. Do you think we could collect some of it? I could get a jar, or transfigure one, and - "

"I could kill you," Hermione suggested from where she lay.

Draco took that to mean his attempt to make her feel better about bleeding everywhere because it could be useful was not successful. He tried to think of something else. "So," he said, "how does it all work? I mean, are you bleeding all over the couch? Do you just do cleaning charms everywhere you go?"

Hermione pulled herself to a seated position. "I use tampons, Draco." At his blank look she pulled something out of her pocket and tossed it to him. He turned it around in confusion, peeled the paper back, and stared in utter perplexity at the white cylinder of what looked like a cardboard tube with a lot of cotton wool wadded up and a string coming out one end.

"You insert it," she said. When he still obviously didn't understand she said, "In your vagina. It soaks up the blood. When it's full, you throw it out and put in a new one." She put her hand out and he returned the tampon-thing to her. "I can tell you don't have any sisters," she muttered.

"Could I see one once it's done?" he asked.

The look of absolute horror she gave him made it immediately clear that was the wrong thing to ask.

"More chocolate?" he asked, trying to remember if the shop was open late enough or would he have to get clear of the school, apparate to the Manor, and beg his mother for help.

Hermione sighed. "It's a good thing I love you, because you are really asking to be murdered today."

"You…what?"

"You're asking to be murdered today," she said again.

"No," Draco said, "Before that."

"You may not see a used tampon?" Hermione asked with a smirk she was almost hiding.

"After that."

"I love you?"

"Yeah," he said. "That." He moved to sit next to her and laced his fingers through hers. "Sorry I've been a prat today."

"It was nice of you to try to get the dress cleaned," she said.

He shrugged. "Easy enough," he said.

"You're pretty wonderful, all things considered," she said.

"I am," he agreed. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I love you, too."

She smiled and snuggled against him until he said, "I don't suppose sex would make you feel better?"

His mother was very accommodating about giving him chocolate she had in the pantry.


	5. Chapter 5 - The Easter Cotillion

"You're serious?" Pansy narrowed her eyes and looked at Hermione as she waited for the trick. "You'll let me plan the Easter Cotillion? The whole thing?"

"I don't want to do it," Hermione said. "And Draco has become obsessed with some project he's working on with a broken Vanishing Cabinet. You'd think it was a matter of life or death the way he spends all his time sending apples through that thing." She shrugged. "I mean, if you don't want to, let me know and I'll - "

"No!" Pansy almost shrieked before Hermione could take her offer away. "I can do teapots pouring out flowers as centerpieces and white rabbits on all the tables and it will be brilliant - brilliant - and you'll just mangle it the same way you do your shoe choices!"

Hermione tried to contain her hurumph of irritation. She knew she should take points from Pansy for the extremely-out-of-dress-code heels the girl had on but she was torn between her admiration that Pansy could even walk in them and her responsibility as Head Girl and admiration had won. She still didn't like having her own practical, comfortable shoes maligned. "Why do you care so much?" she asked. "It's just another dance."

"It's such an important event," Pansy said. Hermione sighed. The condescending tone meant Pansy was about to lecture. "Well, it used to be. Now it's nothing but a dance, you're right, but it _used_ to be the day you flaunted your promise rings and let everyone know you weren't doomed to be some old maid who'd have to become a school teacher or healer or politician or some dreadful, peasanty thing like that."

Hermione decided not to pursue Pansy's assessment of medicine as a career for peasants and instead focused on what was a promise ring. Pansy held out her own hand that had a tiny diamond solitaire on it. "It's not an engagement ring, it's the ring saying you will be engaged as soon as you graduate."

"You're engaged?" Hermione asked in stupefaction. As far as she had been able to determine, the whole of Pansy's social life was staring at Cho from afar and buying shoes. How had she spent enough time with someone to have a relationship? "Or engaged to be engaged or whatever that thing means?"

"As if," Pansy said. "It's my promise to myself not to marry some penis-toting moron no matter how much my mother clutches at her pearls and wails I'll be a failure in life and she'll never have grandchildren and why do I hate her so." She smiled slyly at Hermione. "Lots of parents show up for the brunch the following day. It's a good time. You can meet my mother."

Hermione failed to see why she should be subjected to a pearl-clutching wailer and was about to say so when Pansy added, "And Draco's."

Hermione stared at the tiny ring in horror as she followed where Pansy led. "They're super conservative, aren't they?"

"Ask Draco to recite his genealogy sometime," Pansy said as way of an answer. "I made him stop when he'd reached his great-great-great grandparents but he could have kept going. They socialize with the Goyles and that crowd."

"Shite," Hermione said.

"I'll make sure we're at the same table," Pansy said with glee. "This is going to be so much fun."

. . . . . . . . . .

"Darling." Narcissa Malfoy's hand reached out across the table, picked up a croissant without looking, and retreated back behind the copy of _The Daily Prophet_ the woman was reading. "Have you looked at this yet today?"

Lucius preferred to drink only coffee in the morning, unsweetened, and he was sipping at his daily cup of nearly toxic brew as he sat at the table with his wife. "No," he said. "You have, as usual, stolen it."

The thief in question folded up the paper and slid it across the table to him. "I think you should, at least the editorial section."

Lucius picked the wretched rag up and opened it, expecting to read another bit of idiocy singing the praises of one of Dumbledore's darlings. Last week it had been a piece suggesting all traditional magical practices utilized sacrificial kittens or some such nonsense. The logic had been poor and Lucius had cast it aside before finishing it lest he be tempted to write a rebuttal. That would just bring the Ministry's Committee for Dark Magic Eradication to his doorstep again, as if his great grandmother's grimoire were harboring the secret to raising armies of undead soldiers instead of recipes for better hiccough cures and how to ease the pains of childbirth. His eyes widened when he saw the title of the article Narcissa surely had in mind. _The Case for Traditional Methodology._ The writer, a name he'd never heard, boldly suggested that Hogwarts was remiss in not offering classes on the very practices the Ministry was trying to eradicate.

"Who is this?" he asked Narcissa. "Whoever this is, she just scuttled any chance of a job or influence; unless she's a Muggle-born she's ruined her life, and how would a Muggle-born even learn about Samhain in Dumbledore's Hogwarts?"

Narcissa took a dainty sip of tea.

"You know something," Lucius said. He didn't know why he was surprised. Narcissa _always_ knew something.

"I know she sometimes has difficult monthlies," Narcissa said, "and that she appreciates good chocolate."

Lucius set the paper down and studied his wife. Her smile became more self-satisfied than that of a cat who'd gotten into a bowl of heavy cream _and_ finished that treat off with a canary. "She's Head Girl," Narcissa said at last. "She and Draco know one another fairly well, I'd say. Not, perhaps, everyone pretending not to notice how large that premature baby is well, but well enough."

"Well enough he's told her about Samhain?" Lucius frowned. "If anyone got wind he still kept traditional celebrations he could be painted as a Dark wizard. That could have ruined his career."

"Or made it," Narcissa said. "A politician with a Muggle-born wife who embraces traditional customs?" Her smile got even more pleased with itself. "I think she's a little get-out-of-Azkaban card in that regard. As you mentioned, no one can accuse the Muggle-born Head Girl of having any kind of conservative, Grindelwald-ish agenda or, worse, being in league with that cretinous so-called Lord Voldemort. Who better to stave off the slow creep of Ministry oversight than a man with a Muggle-born wife? And preferably at least one adorable half-blood toddler."

Lucius set the paper down and picked up his coffee again. He did have the most brilliant wife imaginable. He wasn't even surprised when the morning owl brought a letter from Draco asking whether they could plan a shopping trip together in Diagon Alley before the Easter Cotillion.

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco didn't understand why people were snickering at him until Theo, his face a study in neutrality, handed him a copy of _The Daily Prophet_. He read Hermione's lengthy, detailed, annotated, footnoted opinion piece on why Hogwarts should be teaching traditional magical customs with growing horror.

"Now turn to page three," Theo said. His hands shaking, Draco did what his friend suggested and there he stared at the photograph. Someone had sent the _Prophet_ a photo of him, his arm around Hermione, as they both laughed at some joke. 'Is a mud vessel the best way to contain a dragon's fire?' the caption under the photograph asked. 'Head Boy and heir to the Malfoy fortune, Draco Malfoy, is getting serious with activist Muggle-born, Hermione Granger. See her article advocating a return to traditional, long decried, magical customs in the opinion section.'

"Done," Draco whispered. "I'm done for." He looked down at the picture of the pair of them and saw his hopes for a political future evaporate. He was already the son of a man accused - though never convicted - of crimes and now he was publicly linked with a woman one step away from being branded a Dark witch. Samhain scared people after Grindelwald and Voldemort and his girlfriend had announced in the paper the school should be teaching it to children. He turned the pages back to her article. 'We cannot allow fear of past monsters to cut us off from a rich magical heritage,' she'd written.

"It's not that I don't think she's right," Theo said as Draco turned back to the photograph. Theo stopped speaking and Draco turned to see the very right, very impolitic witch coming up to them. "Granger," Theo said then, looking at Draco, he muttered, "I have to go do… something," and fled.

Hermione looked at the photograph, read the caption, and Draco watched her shoulders tense. "Mud vessel?" she asked in a hurt whisper. She took a step backward and he saw something glitter at the corner of her eye. "Well," she said. "That seems a little rude." Her voice shook a bit but she didn't break. "What else can one expect from the _Prophet_ , though."

Draco thought about his dreams of being the youngest Minister in history and looked at the woman holding herself with great care at his side and took a deep breath. "Hermione," he said.

"What?"

"I was… it would have been far more romantic to have gone on a walk and done this the proper way. I've asked my father to take me shopping for…but I don't have it yet, and… would you, uh, consent to wear my, uh, ring?" By the end of the stammered sentence he was staring down at her feet and wondering if Pansy had loaned her the very sharp black pumps she had on because they seemed a little more polished than the practical shoes she usually wore.

"A promise… the thing people show off at the Easter Cotillion… are you sure?" Hermione sounded absolutely dumbfounded.

"Well, it would have been classier to have waited to have the ring in hand," Draco muttered, "So I wouldn't fault you for waiting to see it before you decide, but," he swallowed hard and continued. "I do mean it. And I planned on asking you before…that." He pointed to the photograph with the cruelly phrased speculation. "But it seemed like maybe - "

She grabbed him and then engaged in a display he knew she would normally deem inappropriate. Wildly inappropriate.

 _Wantonly_ inappropriate.

He hoped the same arsehole who'd taken a shot of them on the sly and sent it to the _Prophet_ got an eyeful of this.

. . . . . . . . . . .

"Honestly, Pans," Theo said. "This is getting old."

The pair of them were sitting with Neville in the Quidditch stands watching Cho Chang fly yet again. Rather, Pansy was watching Cho and Theo and Neville were engaging in one of the public snogging bouts that made Hermione mental. Pansy crossed her arms and tapped her high heel against the wooden floor boards of the rickety stand and glowered at the pair of them. "And what should I do?" she demanded.

"Ask her out?" Neville suggested. "What's the worst thing that could happen?"

Pansy gave him a look that implied her opinion of his intelligence had just dropped. "I," she said, "am not one of you rush-in-where-nargles-fear-to-tread Gryffindors. I like to be cautious."

"Coward," Neville said. "Just wave her down and ask her to the Cotillion."

"The _Cotillion_?" Pansy said. "For a _first date_? _"_ She snorted as if the utter social faux pas of that was the problem, not her abject terror at having the object of her crush turn her down. It was just that Cho had such fabulous taste. Most Hogwarts students dressed as badly as Draco's Granger with jumpers that should be binned and shoes that left practical behind and sank all the way into ugly. More, Cho had the body to _wear_ her taste, thanks to all that Quidditch. Pansy leaned on the edge of the stand and sighed as Cho flung herself after the Snitch and all she could think was how much better those Quidditch leathers looked on Cho than they ever had on Draco. She had the best smile, and a cute little brown owl that brought her mail, and Pansy had overheard her getting into an argument with another Ravenclaw about the importance of having printed invitations set the entire tone of a social event, and she was just perfect.

Pansy slouched and was about to just give up and admit she'd never have the bravado to approach Cho when Neville hooted and waved and caught the girl's attention.

"What are you doing?" Pansy hissed as Cho flew over to them but both boys smirked at her as they flew down the stairs.

"Just ask her out," Theo yelled up and Pansy turned back from their retreating forms to find herself face to face with Cho.

"Hey," she said, cursing how she could be utterly poised and together with anyone else but not the one girl she'd like to impress.

"Those are nice heels," Cho said.

Pansy glanced down at her feet and admitted to herself that they really were nice, even by her standards.

"They'd look good on your floor," she said.

Cho looked startled for a moment and then her gorgeous, wide smile lit her face. "Or up around your ears," she suggested.

Pansy decided that while it might be tacky beyond measure to take someone to the Easter Cotillion as a first date - honestly, it was as if Neville had been raised by a vulture or something, he was so clueless about the way normal people behaved - but if you had already exploited Hogwarts' antiquated rules about how boys couldn't go into the girls' dorms but other girls certainly could, than it probably didn't count as a first date and thus was completely fine.

. . . . . . . . .

After the blood incident at the Yule Ball, Hermione had been wary of wearing white again. It seemed like tempting fate. Pansy had laughed at her plans to wear red and gold as a nod to her house colours. "Are you trying to look _literally_ like a scarlet woman?" she'd asked and at Hermione's confused, babbling response, had groaned, gotten a pass from Dumbledore, and hauled Hermione and Cho to London to shop for robes.

Cho and Pansy were, Hermione had to admit, well matched. They both had ridiculously fervent opinions on fashion and could both walk in shoes that looked more like torture devices than footwear. Cho admitted over what Pansy had said would be tea and which turned out to be ale ("they're both liquid, close enough for Ministry work") that she used some floating charms akin to what you'd find on brooms to take some of the weight off.

Now, as Hermione put on the vintage white dress with a pink overlay she had to admit Pansy had been right. She looked ethereal and innocent and lovely and exactly like the girl you'd take home to mother. She glanced down at the ring on her hand. Draco had come back from a shopping trip with his father and fumbled with the box and almost dropped it in the lake before he'd gotten it open and said it was a bit silly to be nervous now that she'd already said yes but he was anyway and would she wear his little ring to the Cotillion.

Draco's definition of a 'little' promise ring made her suspect any actual engagement ring would be on the order of 'you could take someone's eye out with that!' Three diamonds, only two of them things she would have called 'little', sat atop a thin gold band. It was delicate and perfect and amazing but she suspected she'd have the most impressive bauble at the dance though, of course, as Pansy had pointed out only the most conservative and traditional families still treated the affair as a place where _intentions_ were made public.

Hermione was pretty sure the day her picture laughing with Draco had appeared in the _Prophet_ their relationship had been made a lot more public than she liked. If she ever found out who had sent that photograph to the paper they'd be sorry. If she ever got a moment alone with the muckraking, unethical reporter who'd run it with the vulgar, speculative caption, well, that 'Rita Skeeter' would get a piece of her mind. She'd already decided if there was a shred of dirt on that woman anywhere, she, Hermione Granger, researcher extraordinaire, would find it and ruin the filthy trollop.

R.U.I.N.

She gave her hair one last pat, set aside her thoughts of vengeance, and pushed the door of her room open and found Draco waiting for her in the common room. "You look beautiful," he said. She flushed a little. She still wasn't accustomed to being thought of as the pretty girl but she'd decided she could get used to it. It wasn't as if he didn't think she was clever as well; that afternoon's study group with Theo had made his appreciation of her intelligence clear when he'd groaned, dropped his head to the table with an audible thunk, and muttered at least he was the pretty one in their partnership because he clearly wasn't the smart one. The application of runes she'd come up with, she thought, had been pretty good.

"I like the rabbit," he said, touching a small white pin she'd set into the waistband of the dress.

"Nod to Beltane," she said. Dumbledore had commented on her opinion piece in the _Prophet_. He'd suggested with a twinkle in his eye that she was naive and didn't understand the history of how Dark wizards had used traditional magic as their springboard for corruption. He'd suggested she stick to children's stories in the future. "You controlled the curriculum, Headmaster," she'd said. "If I don't know the history, perhaps that's because you've attempted to erase it."

She hadn't cited Muggle literature at him about he who controls the past controls the future. She suspected he was well aware of the sentiment, if not the exact quote. It did explain why the history at Hogwarts was so painfully dull, taught by a lecturing ghost guaranteed to make most students fall into either sleep or numb resignation.

Draco ran his thumb along her mouth. "You," he said with resignation, "are the worst politician's wife ever."

She smiled at him, a little uncertainly, until he tugged her up against him and she muttered not to crush the chiffon as he kissed her. "But you're perfect for me," he said against her mouth. "My brilliant, beautiful, unstoppable, perfect Hermione."

. . . . . . . . . .

Pansy had outdone herself at the Cotillion. Flowers twined up columns and Hermione kept thinking she saw spring songbirds darting around the ceiling. Pansy had cast illusions on the tables to make them seem as if each had a pool in the center with one or two yellow ducklings splashing and making peeping noises. The effect was so good Hermione had to ask Draco in a whisper whether they were real because she was gripped by a momentary concern for unsanitary duck feces near the food.

Draco cast a finite on one at their table and it resolved down into a rubber duck. "All glamours," he said.

"Don't ruin them!" Pansy said as she flung herself into a chair next to Hermione. Cho laughed and re-charmed the rubber back into fluff and the duckling peeped in illusory protest until Cho returned it to the pool. Pansy smirked at them in delight at her new girlfriend's talents and demanded they agree with her that Cho was simply the best. Cho rewarded the praise with a kiss that made Hermione sink lower into her chair. Was no one capable of restraining themselves in public?

A glance over at Neville and Theo suggested that no, no one was. She caught sight of Blaise and Ginny and cringed. She really should go tell them to break it up because there were limits.

That excellent and responsible decision was thwarted by the arrival of two of her least favorite students who eyed the kissing Pansy and Cho with a look that made Hermione want to shove blunt objects into their testicles.

"Cool," Greg Goyle said as Vincent Crabbe leered behind him. "Lesbians! Can we watch?"

Hermione had her hand on her wand but before she could draw it Cho broke off the kiss and, without raising her voice, said, "Ask again and I'll hang you upside down from the ceiling and shove snakes in your mouth." It was clear that Cho meant every pleasantly spoken word.

Greg looked uncomfortably at Draco as if he expected his fellow Slytherin and the Head Boy to do something about Cho's threat but Draco just seemed to be holding back laughter. "Fine," Greg muttered. "Laugh, arsehole. You're the one dating a Mudblood."

Cho gasped and covered her mouth with her hands and all eyes flicked back and forth from Draco to Hermione. Hermione had her hand on her wand, ready to draw it and unleash any number of spells that were quite off limits, but Draco stopped her. "I know you can handle him," he said softly, "but would you allow me to do it instead?"

Hermione let go of her wand and Draco leaned over toward Greg. "Say it again," he invited, " and I'll hex you so you can't ever get hard again." Greg paled and a slow, cruel smile spread across Draco's face. "Don't think I can't. Do we understand one another?"

Greg gulped and looked over at the refreshments table. "Cupcakes," he said with desperate eagerness before he fled, Vincent at his heels.

"Not that much of a threat," Pansy scoffed as she watched the retreating pair. "It's not like his prick gets attention from anyone other than himself anyway." Cho almost choked on her laughter and the tension softened.

"What was that all about?"

Ron still hadn't forgiven Hermione for betraying Gryffindor and consorting with a Quidditch enemy in the form of Draco Malfoy. He liked Greg Goyle even less, however, and was always happy to see the a man he called 'the gormless lump' put to flight.

"Greg needs his mouth washed out with soap," Cho said to the group that had joined them and stood at the edge of the table, dyed carnations pinned to lapels and dresses. Cho and Pansy exchanged a look that shared their view of the flowers Harry and Ron had gotten for, and from, their girlfriends but for once Pansy didn't say anything.

"Many soaps are toxic," Luna said. Hermione glanced at the blonde girl with irritated resignation. She and Harry had started dating, or something, during the winter and that meant that not only did she have to put up with Lavender Brown clinging to Ron, there was now also Luna, who wandered about with vacant eyes saying absurd things that everyone pretended made sense or were at all relevant to the conversation. She'd added a radish to her blue carnation corsage and Hermione wasn't even surprised.

"All the better," Cho said. "Hi Looney."

Harry stiffened at the perceived insult but Luna just said, "Hi lesbian Cho. I'm glad you and Pansy finally stopped staring at one another and started having actual sex. You were making my head ache." She leaned to Ron and said. "Unresolved sexual tension gives me migraines."

Lavender's brittle smile became even more tight as she saw the ring Hermione wore sparkle in the light. "Is that a promise ring?" she asked.

Hermione nodded and Ron let out a huff of disgust. "Do people still do that?" he demanded. "I thought promise rings had gone out with hoops and waiting for marriage."

"Yes," Lavender said. "Some people still do that." She slammed her beaded bag down on the table and muttered, "Not you, obviously, but some people," before stomping off toward the toilet.

"What was that all about?" Ron demanded.

"My head hurts," Luna said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Brunch came far too soon the next morning. Draco had kept Hermione up until it was no longer late but was instead early as they took advantage of their private dorms. They might have not technically needed contraceptive charms, but Draco had cast one anyway just in case.

Bleary-eyed, Hermione stared into the mirror and tried to find and hide the red marks her enthusiastic partner had strewn about her neck. At Pansy's insistence, she had purchased a white suit that was conservative and pretty and just the thing for meeting your boyfriend's traditionalist parents, but it didn't provide a lot of neck coverage. She decided to add a scarf just in case the glamours didn't hold up.

When they joined the Malfoys at the table which Pansy had indeed decorated with teapots pouring out spring flowers, Hermione was pleased to see that Pansy had not led her astray in her choice of attire. Narcissa Malfoy had on a very similar suit. Draco kissed his mother's cheek and shook his father's hand and introduced Hermione to both of them with an attitude that wouldn't have been out of place on a small child showing off the first prize ribbon that he had won at the fair.

Narcissa asked Hermione what she planned to do after leaving school and Hermione was forced to admit that she doesn't have any specific plans. "I was considering researching and writing a book on traditional magical practices," she said. She cast a slightly guilty look at Draco. "I'm not sure, however, given what Draco –"

"Ah, yes," Lucius said. "I read your article in the Prophet and was most impressed. As I'm sure you can guess, I am quite in agreement with your argument."

Hermione fiddled with her napkin and took some time to spread it across her lap, then took a sip from her water glass and then set the goblet down on the table with care. At last she said, "I am afraid that I might have hurt Draco's chances for some of the positions for which he has been applying. Perhaps I shouldn't have –"

"Nonsense," Narcissa said. Never dim your own light to advance the career of any man." She patted her husband on the arm and he beamed down at her. "Not even one you adore," she added.

Hermione flashed a wan smile at Narcissa and let the woman direct the conversation. Somehow, by the time the cheesecake had appeared she has agreed to help with not one, not two, but three charitable organizations with which the woman was involved. "We always need additional brilliant women to help us," Narcissa said. "Charitable work is an excellent way to develop your leadership skills," she continued and while Hermione agreed in theory, she had the suspicion she had just been railroaded by a master manipulator.

"Now that that is settled," Narcissa said as she set her fork down and patted her lips with her napkin, "please do tell me that you will join us for our family Beltane celebration."

Hermione threw a panicked look at Draco. She remembered Pansy and Theo talking about how traditional Beltane celebrations tended to involve sex in the fields and she had the horrible fear that she had just been invited to an orgy by this lovely woman with her immaculately coiffed blonde hair and her perfect suit and her very large diamond ring. Narcissa saw the look and said smoothly, "We generally light a bonfire behind the house, sing some traditional songs and toss a few seeds as a symbolic wish for a fruitful year into the flames before retreating back to the house for drinks and themed desserts."

Hermione tried to control her relief. "That would be lovely," she said. "Thank you so much for inviting me."

Draco looked up annoyance as an owl appeared and dropped some mail on to his plate. "I thought they weren't supposed to deliver this morning," he muttered. "Pansy will be so upset they've spoiled her perfect event."

Pansy, for all that she had said that she would make sure she was at the same table as Hermione and Draco's parents, was not to be seen. She had been running hither and yon all morning trying to ensure that everything went as she had planned.

"Are you going to open it," Hermione asked and, with a shrug, Draco ripped open the envelope.

He read the note first one time, and then again as if he could not believe it. He turned to Hermione, his eyes shining, and said, "I got it!" He passed her the note and she read it, holding it so that his mother could read it as well.

 _Dear Mr. Malfoy. We are pleased to offer you the position of clerk for the Wizengamot during the upcoming year. We were very impressed by your application but, more, we were impressed that you (and your lovely significant other) are unafraid to take a stand against prevailing popular opinion. So many young wizards are only willing to make safe and uncontroversial choices and that is not possible in a true leader. Please let us know by the end of Friday whether you wish to accept the position._

Narcissa made undignified squealing sound which she quickly covered by taking a sip of her water. Lucius coughed and then said, "I'm so proud of you, son."

Hermione engaged in a display that she would have condemned and any other student, especially since it was in front of parents. Neither they nor Draco, however, seemed to object.

A flock of doves burst into the air behind them right as Draco whispered, "I love you," into Hermione's ear.

"Dammit, Greg," they heard Pansy screaming. "You've ruined everything! The doves were supposed to go free when Dumbledore makes his speech about everyone going forth into new lives! Why is no one competent but me?!"

* * *

 ** _She was of course only too good for him; but… nobody minds having what is too good for them. ~ Jane Austen_**

 ** _~ finis ~_**


End file.
